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Alternate wording: "When you've already been through hell, you have nothing to fear." (kinda sounds like a horror movie slogan)

Also, is "fear of death is most common among women than men" grammatically correct? Most/Than? Shouldn't it be "more than"? (I'm guessing that they have editors and this is technically correct, I'm just unfamiliar with it)

Also, is "fear of death is most common among women than men" grammatically correct? Most/Than? Shouldn't it be "more than"? (I'm guessing that they have editors and this is technically correct, I'm just unfamiliar with it)

No it's not, yes it should, and you're unfamiliar with it because it's wrong.;)

Note the tag line at the bottom of the article: "Provided by University of Granada." I suspect they had the article translated into English by a Spanish-speaker who learned English very well in school, but doesn't have a native speaker's grasp of idiom. My mother, an American who speaks German fluently enough to be mistaken for a native speaker and lived in Germany for several years, works as a translator in partnership with

Nope, the school loan you took out will top the list and be the cause of which this article speaks. The realization that you've just enlisted into servitude that will belay retirement 10 years past life expectancy in order to pay off the privilege,will be quite enough to make you even yearn for death.

I became an engineer. I work in a cubicle. I bear a slight resemblance to Dilbert when in my work attire. This my friends, is worse than death. Therefore, I have no fear of death because I am beyond it.

This might be pretty obvious, but there's also a difference between the "fear of death" you feel in everyday life and the kind of "fear of death" you have when you believe that your life is actually threatened in some way. I don't walk around being afraid of dying or anything, but a panic attack a few years ago gave me a new perspective on a few things.

That's weird...In situations were I've come closing to dying the only thing in my mind was how to avoid it (and obviously I was successful) while at times that I'm bored and my mind wonders into the subject then I get scared.
Maybe because I used to do a fair amount of extreme sports as a kid like skiing, mountain biking (a lot of that), doing stupid things with my dad's car etc that I eventually got a handle on dangerous situations.

Why is it silly to fear the former? Fear of death is of course deep in us for obvious Darwinian reasons....there is no real "rationality" behind wanting to continue living except that natural selection put it at the very center of our motivational system. And there was no reason for evolution to make us *only* fear early death.....the important thing was that we do everything in our power to avoid death. -- no good reason to have it be selective between early or late death.

I don't fear death. I fear the pain of dying. I've been seriously injured several times, it's the pain that makes me fear it. Oddly enough my non-university graduate grandfather believed the same thing, he died quite painfully with cancer eating away his spine. He lived about 4 weeks from the time it was diagnosed to the time he died it progressed that quickly.

and it was about fear of Death, you know, fear of THE Death. So the less educated could not look past the scythe and the bony construction, but more educated and wiser people see much more. Ok, it is a bit annoying that he uses all-caps, but he has shown compassion at a number of times and loves cats.

This is such baloney. It's not influencing beliefs, it's good 'ol human sentimentality. Which I value very highly. THIS IS WHAT MAKES US HUMAN. Think of everything you love, and hold dear. Now imagine your life without it. You are not on a horse, you are dead, in a blank void, as you clearly stated.

I have a 6 year old son. Tell me why I would not be scared of losing the chance to see him grow up?

And as an aside, please tell me how you managed to cognitively grasp the concept of thought if there was no thought itself.

A open mind that seeks learning also sees a greater universe. In a universe of galaxies lasting billions of years it is hard to get really worried about one's insignificant monkey existence. You and every generation you can track in either direction are noting but the most insignificant blip imaginable.

Of course all life has value being a critter with a greater degree of choice (the greater degree of choice based upon greater understanding) does not deny any creatures with lessor choice lessor value, the

I don't want to die, and nobody i've ever known isn't inherently shit scared of death.

I definitely don't want to die, but I'm not really "scared" of death. I would fight tooth and nail not to die, because I want to continue my life.

I have a 6 year old son. Tell me why I would not be scared of losing the chance to see him grow up?

Looking forward and imagining my daughter growing up without me is horrible and depressing. But I'm also aware that no matter how strongly I feel about it right now, I simply won't care after I'm dead for the very simple fact that *I* will not exist anymore. There'll be no "me" and therefore no way that I could care about anything, including my loved ones that

You can only die once, and I have been dead, so I will live forever now....
I think the University was worse than death anyway, pain goes away when you die, at the University the pain never went away...

Because that's a false statement (more people can't die than the total number of people born, as those who are not born can't die, due to not existing in the first place), and you're begging the question.

What I do fear, however, since I live in the United States where suicide and assisted suicide are illegal, is becoming almost completely nonfunctional due to sudden paralysis, stroke, etc. The fear is that if I were locked in and could only communicate one character an hour, they'd still keep me alive for as long as they could, even if I had to lay there awake but bored and paralyzed for 16 hours a day.

A distant second is dying a horrible slow death, perhaps by starvation.

Actually in Oregon and Washington at least assisted suicide it legal under certain circumstances. In Oregon 2 doctors have to certify that you probably have less than 6 months to live. Then you can get a prescription for a fatal dose of barbiturates that you must swallow yourself at a time of your choosing.

Those laws have some serious flaws to them. I personally voted against the one in Washington because it seemed to be unnecessary for the stated purpose. We could have solved the same problem by granting doctors the ability to ignore normal dosing practices with the informed consent of the patient to prescribe the necessary dose to treat the pain with the understanding that as the dose rises the likelihood of death and addiction does as well. I don't think anybody on either side was particularly concerned with an individual with less than a year to live getting hooked on the junk.

It bothered me a great deal that the initiative passed on strength of sentimentalism and FUD where a lesser measure could have addressed the issue more appropriately. There was sparse evidence that the demand was for reasons other than depression and inadequate palliative care. And there was no requirement that the individual get declared as depression free from a psychiatrist or psychologist.

No charges, I guess, but if you make an attempt, you'll be held until they think you've changed your mind. Then they'll let you go. It's not QUITE a law thing, it's more of a "If you want to kill yourself obviously you're defective and can't be charged with sharp pointies." thing

Maybe the better read have listened to the words of Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius:

"Live a good life. If there are gods and they are just, then they will not care how devout you have been, but will welcome you based on the virtues you have lived by. If there are gods, but unjust, then you should not want to worship them. If there are no gods, then you will be gone, but will have lived a noble life that will live on in the memories of your loved ones."

Thanks for posting that, I have never heard that before, I came to the same conclusion many years ago and try to be a fair and decent person.

Last year I had a heart attack and as I was in the ambulance with the sirens and blue lights going I knew I might well die. I wasn't really afraid of dying but I did feel it was too soon I wanted to see the kids grown up, married and with children of their own.

I also am a huge fan of morphine, it doesn't so much stop pain as take away the fear of death. It gives you the calm to accept what will be will be. You don't fear for your own fate but feel for your loved ones and the upset they feel for you being so close to death. I also remember the priest coming round to see me and he asked me religion? I said not yet. I really don't feel like it is time for me.

The first year after my heart attack was tough, the statistics are frightening 30% of people who have a first heart attack die before reaching a hospital of the 70% left 50% will die within 6 to 8 years and in the first year you have a 25% chance of dying in the following years it drops to about 3% everybody has a chance of dying but its about 1.5% so now although my chances are raised I don't feel like its that much higher.Year one was depressing I was constantly thinking about my health and didn't feel like I had a future.

Now I just want to get back on track and find a job and live a happy life doing something with somebody I love. I'm really grateful for my medical treatment and thanks to the irish health service I was treated for free and pay a nominal amount for my meds. Just hope there is someone who will take me on doing something.

Reminds me a bit of The Stainless Steel Rat who says he is an Atheist, because that makes him a better person. A person of faith will believe he has a second chance in some sort of afterlife, so he will have no problem killing somebody as that would not be the end of that persons life.

An Atheist knows it will end that persons life for now and forever and will thus be much more careful with ending one.

Used this argumentation once with some Mormons and they became pretty confused.:-D

Some web sources seem to claim that quotation is entirely unsourced. However, from looking through Meditations, it seems to be at least partially sourced from Book 2, Number 11. At least the first few parts of the thought, i.e. living a good life, and the general format of inquiring on if there are gods, and they care about human affairs, etc. However, the quotation itself doesn't seem to follow the translations I found on the web very closely at all.

Death wouldn't be so bad if it didn't have to involve every memory you ever had being erased from existence. Written word and other recordings are completely inadequate to compensate for everything that is lost when a person dies. Just because death is currently inevitable does not make fear of it irrational - fear focuses awareness, which is perfectly appropriate when it involves everything you are in the world ceasing to be, lost to everyone.

imagine building a computer as a kid and having it run a very very long program. it runs that program for 20, 30, 50, 80 years! its getting real close to some kind of conclusion or answer, too.

then, someone yanks the power out and you had no time to sync to disk. all your data and all those 80 years of accumulated processing is gone as the power supply runs to zero and your ram loses refresh.

it makes NO SENSE when you think of life this way. I don't see how your 'data' (life experience) is at all saved

Well, circumstances are irrelevant. Like it or not, you will die. The only questions are when and how. As my dad always says: "You're not getting out of life alive, so you might as well enjoy yourself".

I have no fear of death, partly because it's inevitable, and partly because I can think of many cases where living can be much worth than death. The reason people fear death is because of the uncertainty over if there's an afterlife and what it's like - primarily, they're afraid that maybe those religious

What is consciousness exactly? Matter organized in particular ways? Electric impulses? Information? Which of these really disappear when you kick the bucket? According to cosmology, even if you are sucked into a black hole someone could later observe every photon it emits as it evaporates due to quantum effects and reconstruct you atom by atom. For more practical solutions, you could upload important parts of your persona to cloud computing (write books, raise children, etc) and they will happily keep runni

Seems like there's a long list of benefits in education. Not only will you be less religulous, but you will also not fear death as much and hopefully get a more fullfilling job.Educating women is even better, they have fewer children and a better health. And they tend to see education as something important for their children.Have a look at Hans Roslings excellent talk about the miracle in Pakistan for what education has done, and especially education of women.

at present, the education system does not have any formal and systematic method to deal with death in class. If death were introduced in the education system, children would have a more real and intense approach to life, and many of the problems derived from the mourning process in the adulthood would be prevented.

I hope they mean the topic of death rather than death itself. I don't really want our teachers killing anybody as an object lesson.

it's because (statistically) the more educated, the less religious. While one would think that the religious person, hoping for life after death, would fear it less, I think the opposite is true. The atheist can take comfort in believing that everything just stops when you die, that is you just cease to exist - no pain, no awareness, no anything. A religious person who believes in the after life has to worry about whether they're going to heaven or hell, will it hurt when I'm dead and (for some) maybe even a little fear about the cracks in their faith (i.e. could I be wrong?)..

I mean one of the symptoms of clinical depression is willingness to consider suicide. (Which I would think would mean that you feel death less.) Isn't depression more common among people with degrees? (Isn't it also more prevalent among those with higher IQ's as well?)

Look, that's certainly true, but we're talking about distributions here. I've seen stupid people in academia, and I've seen smart people in the general population. But here in academia, if I walk up to someone and strike up a conversation about some complex issue that perhaps one or both of us aren't very familiar with, 99% of the time I'll come out with a greater understanding of the issue than I had before. I learn something, just by accessing the intelligence of that other person. In the general population, 99% of the time the best I can hope for is a complete lack of interest from the other person or a few very stupid comments that make me sorry I started the conversation.

So yeah, academia ain't no intellectual utopia, but there is a difference...

People fear what they don't understand. Ignorant people fear more, and are manipulated by their fear en masse.

Getting a master's degree in physics did not give me any particular understanding of death. However, a central point of experimental sciences is coping with uncertainty. Understanding that the world is not black and white has a lot to do with your personality, and many people do not seem to be comfortable with themselves unless they feel absolutely certain about some things.

In my current work as a teacher, one general challenge is getting my students from "what is the right/wrong answer" to understanding and analyzing the questions in a deeper level. I feel like I must first undo the elementary school teachings, in order to teach scientific thinking.

This seems to reflect the fact that lower levels of education are about strict judgment and rote memorization. People at this level fear death, because they feel like they must have some kind of absolute knowledge in order to deal with it.

Your point here about strict judgment was important to me personally. By relaxing my beliefs for or against things, and just leaving them in whatever state of ambiguity seemed to be justified by the available facts at the time, all kinds of possibilities opened up that weren't there otherwise.

Of course, too much of this sort of thing too early leads to a sloppiness or fuzziness in thought that's not very constructive either. And everyone is at a different place with that. As a teacher, I started off tryi

No, getting a master's degree in physics did not give you any additional understanding or perspective. However, you being the type of person to get a master's degree puts you in a group that is more highly correlated with having that perspective...

I agree, I believe this is how it generally goes with studies that correlate something with education. However, I also believe education does have some effect. (Or what exactly am I doing as a teacher?:) In my personal experience, dealing with experimental data improved my ability to cope with uncertainty. It is an ability I already had, but it made me appreciate it more than before.

Maybe if you're shit-scared of death all the time you find refuge in faith.

Me, I have a university degree and an IQ in the genius range (I don't think I'm a genius). Count me as someone that is educated, reasonably intelligent and scared of death. Isn't fear of death natural? I mean, I don't want to imagine a world without me, I won't be there. And that's leaving out the part in which you actually die, which isn't going to be any fun either

If I believed that there was a good chance that after I died I would be thrown into a lake of fire and otherwise punished for the rest of eternity, you can bet your sorry ass that I would be scared shitless of dying. Yes yes if you're good you get to go to heaven, but what if you accidentally committed a mortal sin without realizing it or something? After all, if you read the Bible, God is nothing if not capricious; how can you know that when He said "No mixed fabrics!", He didn't really mean it? What if you really are supposed to believe in the Miracle of Transubstantiation, reality be damned? It's just so uncertain.

Fortunately there's no hell, so there's no worries on that front. Honestly, I can't for the life of me see why theists think that religion brings peace and comfort. What is any amount of Earthly reassurance, in the face of the threat of infinite torture? (take that, Pascal!)

It's not easy making money off of religion. The whole idea is that money flows from the many to the few, so only so many religious people can actively profit from it. It does make getting and keeping a job easier in many (if not most) cases, but this depends on what sector you work in.

Of course, if you're an atheist, you could argue that it's not an immoral decision to *pretend* to be religious, for the perks. In some countries the "perks" include staying alive.

Hell, you just have to pass around a plate and people put their hard-earned money on it. As a former altar boy I was fascinated by the collection. In my church, they had guys come down the aisle with these baskets with long handles, because they were afraid to pass a plate and tempt the believers with actually handling a dishful of money. It seemed like a great racket, and I may have gone into the church business, until I learned that the Priests got zero pussy. I remember asking my older brother what kind sex Father Moran was getting, and when he answered "None", I thought he said "Nun" and figured he was banging Sister Margaret Mary. Well, Sister Margaret Mary was a dead ringer for Dick Cheney, so I figured maybe there were better rackets to make an easy buck. That's when I decided to become an English major. Well, it was a long while before I started making any real money, and by then I had to join another kind of priesthood called "Academia", but I got to bang a lot of goth chicks (or what would be called goth today), who looked a whole lot better than Sister Mary Margaret. By the way, if you're college age and you're staying away from the goth chicks because you think they'd be no fun in the sack, don't be a dope. The pale makeup and dour expression both come off when they get a few drinks in them and they turn into more fun than Chucky Cheese on weed.

Anyway, what were we talking about? Oh yeah. Religion. Fuck them. And if you're an altar boy wondering what kind of sex your priest gets, stop wondering right now and run away because it's a trap!

And if I unexpectedly should be thrown into that lake of fire instead of fading into nothingness, well... That would be the time to go ahead with the full survive, evade, resist, escape program and take the bastard responsible for this on. Let's see who's burning in the end.

If that happens, the guy on the other side created a universe, of which something as insanely complicated as a human is one trillionth of a trillionth of a trillionth of a percent. The guy built the moon and is way better at physics than Steven Hawking, so it's not like you're dealing with a guy that lacks either brains or brawn. Plus if the lake of fire is actually on the moon, you're pretty much fucked on that escape part. So best of luck, assuming you weren't the rare total douche who deserves a lake

Oh, I did not mean Satan with the guy responsible for this. Any god condemning a single soul to infiinte punishment for a finite transgression is pure evil. That one would be the target in this unlikely case.

I really like the story with the Devil and God throwing him out. And God being good and the Devil being bad.Good versus Evil. Great storytelling.

But what if the Evil guy had won and then says He is the good guy? If I were the evil guy, I certainly would mess with peoples head and say that I was good, although I was evil. Say to two different persons that I am their only God and kill the other one and see who wins. Just because I can.Let people die and the few who live must thank me for my mercy.

All the while the Devil who tries to come back, I will tell the worst stories about. And all the the Devil want to do is you to have fun.

Or is this just a matter that absolute power corrupts absolutely?

Anyway. Nice and entertaining stories. Lots of violence and sex, so great to turn into movies.

I don't know where you folks got your information, but that's not the story I heard. I'm not even religious, but at least I did pay a little attention when I was a kid.

There was no "God vs Devil" death-match as this thread suggests. My understanding was that God created "everything", both good and evil. It never was a matter of who would win, it was simply that good could not exist without evil.

The whole thing with Lucifer was about trying to get the other angels to follow "him" instead of God, not about kicking God's butt, which even he had the sense to know could not happen.

As I said, I'm certainly no Jesus freak (I tend to think Bill Maher has it about right), but folks, at least get the story straight.

That's not the whole story either - hard to pull the "good needs evil" thing out of the bible either. The whole Lucifer/Satan thing is rather apocryphal anyway and more based on Milton than on the bible itself. The words "Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven" are by Milton originally, spoken by his Satan. Milton didn't write Paradise Lost as a piece of Christian fiction - given how heavily influenced he was by Greek and Pagan ideas and how much of that shows in the poem. Amusingly, he is still the main source for the popular picture of hell and Satan.

This is just a corollary of humans apparent inability to understand abstract concepts they cannot readily define. Humans define things with boundaries. Heck by the very meaning of "define" it is to explain by limitation, the reduction to the point of understanding. In fact that is why we have arguments that make no sense with absolutes, as while we may have created an abstract concept of absolute values (never, forever, infinity, largest, smallest, etc...) humans have trouble using them logically. This is "

Read a fascinating (and funny) book called "Sympathy for the Devil" by Holly Lisle. It's available for free from the Baen Books Free Library. (baen.com) (Baen is a large SF publisher specializing in fantasy and military SF, not a religious books place, so fear not that I'm trying to convert you...) I believe Holly Lisle is a Fantasy author, although I have not read her other work.

In the book a young nurse asks the very same question of God after a rough day at work and offers up her very soul to stop it

Heaven is a terribly boring place, Hell is suffering, I would rather take another chance at life and Re-incarnate, of course it would be nice to retain ALL my memories of the past life so I could learn from experience and not make the same mistakes twice.

I was driving around one day and found myself hungry and wanting something to eat and I thought to myself, "Taco Bell! I haven't eaten at a Taco Bell in years!" I drove to the nearest Taco Bell and got a taco, a tostada, and an Enchirito(tm), my old favorite. Man, was I disappointed. "That's why I never eat at Taco Bell!"

So a couple years later I'm driving and thinking how I'm kinda' hungry and I see a Taco Bell. "Taco Bell! I haven't eaten there in years!" I go in and order up my favorite meal and e

If I believed that there was a good chance that after I died I would be thrown into a lake of fire and otherwise punished for the rest of eternity, you can bet your sorry ass that I would be scared shitless of dying. Yes yes if you're good you get to go to heaven, but what if you accidentally committed a mortal sin without realizing it or something? After all, if you read the Bible, God is nothing if not capricious; how can you know that when He said "No mixed fabrics!", He didn't really mean it? What if you really are supposed to believe in the Miracle of Transubstantiation, reality be damned? It's just so uncertain.

For those who believe in it, it's not uncertain at all. I've never met anyone who believed in the literal existence of Hell who wasn't absolutely 100% sure he wasn't going there. It's all those icky... other... people who are going to burn in eternal torment, while the good and virtuous spend a blissful afterlife with the Lord.

And yet, strangely, most of these folks try just as hard to avoid death as the rest of us do.

Honestly, I can't for the life of me see why theists think that religion brings peace and comfort. What is any amount of Earthly reassurance, in the face of the threat of infinite torture?

I don't like music. I listened to some once, and it didn't appeal to me, so I can't see how anybody would actually enjoy listening to music of any kind.;-)

The fire and brimstone business is symptomatic of the kind of thinking that produces zero tolerance policies. Can't think of what to do about students using drugs, so lets get something really harsh policies on paper. I don't have much faith, so I'd better make the little I have go as far as possible by making it harsh as possible. Since I'm afraid of

I think there is a part of the Bible that says the only unforgivable sin, the only thing that can keep you from going to heaven, is the complete and absolute rejection of God. However, since God is infinite and unknowable you can't really reject him completely. You can reject the parts you know about, but not the parts you don't know about. You might not even want to reject those parts if you did know about them. Ergo, no one goes to hell.

It is normal to not want to die. This is normal self-preservation in action. When you realize that you must die as billions have before you then you fear death less - it is inevitable and there will be no miracle 'cure' to avoid it - all you can do it treat your body well and really live as well as you can. Then you will be truly be living in full knowledge that one day you will too pass away - probably never to return. So don't fscking waste the time you have! You will transcend the fear the more you accep

A) Greetings existentialists:)
B) I *am* Jewish, and "Le-Chaim" means "To Life" if you approximate it to modern Hebrew. If you look at the etymology of it, and at the purpose of the phrase, it becomes more complicated, and (arguably) a question of opinion.

I would decouple the fear of death from the belief in the supernatural. Philosophically I am interested in the supernatural even if I am perfectly fine with the idea of not existing after my biological death (if my predecessors had been immortal there would have been no resources for me to exist so I can't possibly complain can I). It's a matter of getting to the truth, not to find some comfort. And I think many people who were later converted to a religion lived in harsh realities where death was so common

Once again, timothy can't put down the paint thinner long enough to check his submission - look at the very first sentence. "... lower literacy leve." See what you did wrong there, timothy? But no, he manages to embarrass himself once again.

You don't hang out with a lot of people who either dropped out of high school or who are downright proud of managing to force their way through high school, do you?

I'd say that if anything my experience has shown me that while there are outliers who go against the norm overall people with less education tend to be a lot more conformist, a lot more likely to listen to authorities (that's not to say they won't be loudly and irrationally opposed to authorities they dislike, just that from what I've seen they t

Academics are a very small subset of people with degrees. And I'm not quite sure why clamouring for Kodos rather than Kang makes you a social revolutionary, but arguing here that a modern university degree tends to restrict the mind is like preaching atheism to the converted. Curiosity rarely survives formal education.

I think that depends a lot on the education and the teacher (as well as the student).

I've seen a lot of students basically get brainwashed by professors who demand perfect conformance to their personal quirks, for some reason this seems especially common among those studying to become teachers, social workers and economists, but I've also seen plenty of examples of professors that would rather pass a student that did something wrong but used their own mind while failing those who just repeat what's in the c

Care to share a little summary? I'm not inclined to give Hitchens my money just on the recommendation of some random comment on Slashdot, but I've heard a lot of what Hitchens has to say about religion and he rarely gives anything other than the Abrahamic religions more than a few offhand remarks. What exactly is his critique of, for instance, mindfulness?

Just feel the beating heart in your chest. Thump Thump Thump. Now imagine it slowly stopping. The world around you going fuzzy and out of focus. A slow, deep, sleep over coming your senses, beckoning you to release yourself to the void. You try to take a breath, but have no strength left to do so. Slowly the air exits your lungs and you become numb. Everything becomes quiet...then silence. Peace at last.

That's incorrect -- death is not peaceful silence. Peaceful silence is something people have experienced and are familiar with. Death is your own non-existence, which by definition it is impossible for you to experience.

(You might get some moments of peaceful silence just before you die.... but that's not death, that's dying. And depending on how you die, you might not even get that)

Death is your own non-existence, which by definition it is impossible for you to experience.

I work on the method of thinking about what life was like (for me personally) before I was born. That's identical to death in my opinion. What I personally experienced in 1856 is identical to what I will personally experience in 2156.

Definitely a bit of weird thing to wrap your head around in terms of the "non-existence", but I feel it's a better comparison than the post you replied to talking about "peaceful silence".

Good job quoting out-of-context to support your contrarian post. I'm sure a good proportion of readers here won't have read the rest of that sentence in the article and won't know that you're trolling until they get to the third or fourth line in your post.

They fear the rule of law more than death and Government is their God.

Yes, and they also kidnap infants and drink their blood at their Satanic gatherings.

Can we stop with the hysteria yet? People in the US government are like people anywhere else -- some good, some bad, most just trying to pay their bills and keep out of trouble. Just because it's in the political interest of certain right-wing media organizations to regularly vilify them doesn't mean you have to mindlessly play along.

Spoken like someone who has never been around anyone with a security clearance.People with clearances are like everybody else except they try to not to talk about some parts of their work. You take two people working for the same organization with roughly the same background and responsibilities but one has a clearance and the other doesn't, you aren't going to find a significant variation except the one with the clearance is more reticent about talking about their job. Ain't nothing 'ruthless' about it.